Hearthstone Talk: deck lists and heroic bosses

I have still been plugging away at Hearthstone, and I am starting to see the practice pay off. Not only do I have a better awareness of what cards are out there, but also I’m learning how to anticipate what my opponent could do next.

While I’m finding that much of getting better is just playing a ton of games, adding cards to my meagre library also helps a lot. In the past week I’ve gotten a second Faerie Dragon, a second Equality, my first Power Overwhelming, and the Cairne Bloodhoof legendary.

Generally I’ve just been dropping 100 gold on a card pack every time I get it because I don’t really enjoy Arena, or perhaps I just don’t enjoy being terrible at it. I should probably math out whether the benefits of Arena rewards in the 0-3 wins category is worth the extra 50 gold.

I’ve been using Arena Value as I make my decks to get pick suggestions and more easily track the number of minions and things. It’s helpful, although occasionally you run into something like this:

THANKS ARENA.

The two decks I’ve been enjoying the most lately are aggro paladin and control mage.

I just took out 1 Blessing of Might for a Blessing of Kings, replaced a Novice Engineer with a second Equality (my card draw is pretty good with the Divine Favors), and removed one Wolfrider for a second Faerie Dragon although I’m debating that one. I want to craft a second Leper Gnome to replace that Shieldbearer — seriously me, why is that in this deck? — and add the new Paladin secret, perhaps replacing my last Blessing of Might.

My other favorite deck started out as something tailored for Heroic Naxx boss fights — if I don’t have any minions, you can’t zap them! As it turns out I find many of the Heroic fights to be too dependent on the perfect card draw in the first couple of turns to be my thing, but this deck is still so much fun to play in Constructed even if it’s kind of wonky.

The obvious upgrade here is crafting Azure Drakes, probably to replace the Ogre Magis. I also wouldn’t mind a Pyroblast for the sheer fun of playing it if for no better reason.

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If you’re going to run equality, the best thing you can do is get x2 Wild Pyromancer. It’s the best board clear a Pally can get (play Pyro, immediately play equality, everything is dead).Izlain´s last post: I Know That Feel

Tainted Ghoul can fill that role too, though there are trade-offs of course. WP+Equality is better than Consecrate+Equality from a mana POV, but Con+Eq is one-sided so yeah, more trade-offs. Since you’re just looking to push through as much damage as possible with this deck, you’re probably mostly concerned with taunts, so it could be that Elvish Hunter (? the 1/1 for 1 that does 1 damage as battlecry) is the way to go for this deck. Knife Juggler can take out the other targets more often than not. It’s worth testing all these setups to see what works best for you.Dahakha´s last post: What I Played: Steam Challenge – Little Inferno

Oh I meant as a combo with Equality. Cast Equality, drop the Hunter to kill the taunt guy. If Knife Juggler is out too, then you get to possibly kill another minion as well. Then you get to attack the hero before they start trading (or use AoEs), or you can sacrifice some of your little guys to take out the rest of their minions.

It’s just a different way of looking at how you want to use Equality. As I said, with aggro decks you typically want to keep your minions around for as long as possible and ignore their minions to just punch them in the face, so you don’t generally want to be wiping your own side of the board out with Equality + WP. If you don’t have any board presence then WP + Equality is great, otherwise a more surgical combo with the Elvish Hunter might be better – although Equality + Consecrate is best, it is also the most expensive and you are hoping to win before you even get to that much mana. You still have that option in your deck – I wouldn’t replace Consecrate with WP or EH – but WP and EH have their pros and cons with Equality so it’s up to you to figure out what kind of situation is most relevant and which option is better for that.

I actually think a good aggro deck needs a cheap taunt or two. Look at the Warlock Zoo, for example. These decks suffer when their aggressive minions can be picked off in the early game by opposing minions, so protecting them from trades for a turn can be the difference between a win and a loss. I can’t tell you how many times my control druid deck has been just one turn away from stabilising because I had to deal with Voidwalkers and Shield Bearers before I could get to the real threats. Sunfury Protector and/or Defender of Argus might be better replacements for the Shieldbearer, although you do have enough pumps (Blessings, Abusive Sergeant, DWA) to make it fit in with your aggressive strategy.

The more I use Azure Drake, the more I am convinced it is simply the best minion in any deck with a decent amount of spell damage. It is incredibly good value. I am frankly shocked that it isn’t an epic card!Dahakha´s last post: What I Played: Steam Challenge – Little Inferno